Forcing through the same-sex marriage Bill will bring Cameron down: his determination to do it shows how out of touch he has become

David Cameron is setting up a cabinet level task force to combat Islamic extremism (Photo: PA)

He has thrown away his authority as Tory leader over an issue utterly irrelevant to the nation’s problems. Is he mad?

It is now becoming clear that marriage, more than Europe or the economy, is the issue which more than any other will lose the next election for the Tories. They cannot now win. According to a ComRes poll, taken this month, quoted by the rather well-written letter handed in at 10 Downing Street yesterday by 25 Tory local party chairmen, 20 per cent of those who voted Conservative in 2010 agree with the statement “I would have considered voting Conservative at the next election but will definitely not if the Coalition Government legalises same-sex marriage”. That includes me: I voted Tory in 2010 — I didn’t just want rid of Brown, in my naivety, I was attracted by the idea of The Big Society, as were other Catholics, including Archbishop Nichols (maybe that should have made me think). That turned out to be an empty slogan. Now Cameron is about to enact same-sex “marriage”, which did not figure, either in his election manifesto or in the coalition agreement. I will never vote Tory again, so long as Mr Cameron remains Tory leader. I know that means Miliband in Downing Street: but how could that be any worse? The fact is that our polity has been wrecked, and our society gravely (though perhaps not, given time — at least half a century — irreversibly) damaged by those who have held power in this country over the last 25 years. There is very little real democracy left. Blair wrecked the constitution. Cameron is about to damage, very seriously, the institution of marriage, the building block from which our society is built. It all looks pretty hopeless, and if your assumptions are entirely secular, hope isn’t, indeed, a commmodity you can rationally harbour very much of.

Back to the Tories. The fact is that if 20 per cent of those who would have considered voting Tory at the next election will not do so if the gay “marriage” bill is enacted, then he cannot win. Nor can he ultimately survive as leader if over half his MPs vote against him tomorrow, as the Sunday Telegraph (which always has good information among the Tories) predicts. There is very little loyalty to the Tory leader left among his MPs, who are well aware of opinion among their own grassroots. According to yesterday’s Telegraph, around 180 Conservative MPs, including six whips and up to four members of the Cabinet, are ready to oppose the Prime Minister’s plan to legalise gay marriage: that leaves only around 120 Tories to vote for the measure. At the same time, the 25 chairmen or former chairmen of Conservative party associations I have already quoted have warned that the policy will cause “significant damage” to the Tories’ 2015 general election campaign. One chairman, who has quit over the issue, said “this is a policy dreamt up in Notting Hill”; a still serving chairman said it had angered the grassroots more than Europe. Cameron is tearing the Tories apart, and for what? It seems like political madness.

According to the Telegraph, among those who will vote against will be Owen Paterson, the Environment Secretary, and David Jones, the Welsh Secretary, Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, who will either vote against or abstain; Iain Duncan Smith is expected to abstain. At least half of the Tories’ 12-man whips’ office, on whom Cameron relies to enforce party discipline, will also vote against as will senior Tories like Sir Malcolm Rifkind, Liam Fox and Andrew Tyrie, chairman of the Commons Treasury Committee. A good number of junior ministers will also vote against. The fact that this will be on a free vote can provide no comfort for Mr Cameron. Downing Street has made it plain that it regards this as an issue of confidence; and bullying messages have been put about implying that those who vote against the bill can forget any advancement in their political careers.

The letter from the Tory chairmen is too long (Cameron probably won’t even look at it, he’s so arrogant), but it’s worth reading, all the same. I quote simply two paragraphs:

“According to another ComRes poll in February 2012, 70 per cent of British adults agreed that ‘marriage should continue to be defined as a life-long exclusive commitment between a man and a woman’.

“To dismiss these strongly held views as those of an extremist minority, or a minority at all, would be wrong, as would the assumption that this is an issue which will swiftly be forgotten and abandoned by those who have made their feelings clear. We feel it would also be wrong to assume that the passage of time will remove opposition to same sex marriage and the advocacy of traditional conservatism. The largest faith groups, the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church and Islam ,are strongly opposed to same sex marriage in common with most practiced faiths in Britain. Equally, we are sure you will agree that the Conservative Party needs to do much more to attract ethnic minority voters to the Conservative cause. It is predicted that by 2030, 25 per cent of voters will be of ethnic minority background, most of whom oppose same sex marriage.”

That final point really does show how out of touch Cameron has become. He has just had the bright idea, it seems (on top of his renegotiation with the EU, etc etc) of trying to make the Tory party more attractive to black and Asian voters. And he forces through this vote on gay marriage? Is he totally out of touch with reality? But why do I even ask the question?

To accuse Scarfe of a ‘blood libel’ is unpardonably over the top: accusations of that seriousness should be more carefully made

Dr William Oddie is a leading English Catholic writer and broadcaster. He edited The Catholic Herald from 1998 to 2004 and is the author of The Roman Option and Chesterton and the Romance of Orthodoxy.

Disqus seems to be playing tricks again. mu comment above was in reply to Benedict Carter’s “Of course repeal it! We have to support with all our might the human FAMILY, and that means man + woman + children, not any other variant. We are made completely human by the union of man and woman, the two sides of humanity. Any other variant destroys our humanity. “

http://profile.yahoo.com/PWZKI7JBARE4DDT3NQ22RWMOJE Benedict Carter

Your example is nonsensical and irrelevant. The widow in question has the possibility of again marrying.

Nicolas Bellord

Yes and yes. The law in fact makes a distinction between acts that are merely unlawful and acts that are criminal. Adultery is unlawful but not criminal as is a breach of contract.

Katec481

Why would those existing acts need to be repealed? I am NOT homophobic.
It is the need and right of all humans to be together and nurtured as their nature has dictated (though not all lonely elderly will agree that is what society gives them). I agree laws are there to protect the vulnerable. What I cannot understand is the need to enforce a religious act for them to feel “a proper couple”, Why did the law have to be brought into it? What is the much bigger agenda ? – because there IS one, believe me. The church takes its rulings from the Christian bible (well most of the church does, but we won’t digress). The bible is a collection of rules. Who are we, mere society, to re-write those rules? Why bother with religion at all in that case?

Why has this been pushed through so quickly against massive opposition? What is the bigger picture when we have so many more pressing important issues?

JocktamsonsBairn

Erm try telling that to any one of the thousand or so living survivors of the Magdalene Laundries for starters.And as for not believing in “Fairy Tales”..eh hello?.

Katec481

To bring that up (or the fate of the thousands of children who were sent off to Australia back in the 50s by the church – though it hasn’t wavered their faith – I know that for a fact), is detracting from the main point,
Do you have any comprehension how many Catholics live and have lived in the world – even say over the past 100 years ? Millions. And how much good has been done by them? And what a miniscule proportion of them have done wrong against their fellow man? Catholics ARE a compassionate people. All areas of society have their bad apples… it is this very point we are trying to make here ! To stop mistakes being made law. I know dreadfully promiscuous gays that turn my stomach, but I don’t tar all gay people with the same brush. Neither should you all Catholics.
Your comment is therefore irrelevant

Jonathan West

So, let me follow this line of reasoning. Even though you regard homosexual acts as sinful, you don’t think it is the business of the law to get involved, in other words it is not the business of the state to legislate private morality.

So heterosexual sex can legally occur both within and without marriage, and the civil institution of marriage (as opposed to the religious sacrament of marriage) can be adapted to to needs of civil society, and in fact has undergone many such adaptations over the years, for instance changes in laws concerning tax, inheritance, community property, divorce and marital rape.

None of these things affects the sacrament of marriage, merely the civil institution of marriage and it seems to me that all these things are properly the job of parliament to legislate on.

It seems to me that it is an entirely valid argument that those who are in long-term same sex relationships should be allowed to enjoy the legal protections of civil marriage to exactly the same extent that those in long-term heterosexual relationships benefit now.

It seems to that the only valid argument against this would be that Wolfenden is wrong, that it is the business of the state to legislate in the area of private morality, and that because of issues of private morality same sex couples are not deserving of the legal protections enjoyed by heterosexual couples.

Would you argue that way?

http://twitter.com/LaCatholicState la catholic state

Look at the way secular society treats women. Honestly, secular women must be gluttons for punishment. (Not that I approve any idiocy or cruelty that went on in the Laundries,…but we must hear both sides…because believe it or not…there are a lot of anti-Catholics around only too happy to propogandise!)

And one of the great fairy tales of our time, dreampt up by deluded MP’s is gay so-called ‘marriage’. Just guts the whole concept of marriage. Marriage is now worthless.

http://twitter.com/LaCatholicState la catholic state

The plan is purely anti-Christ. ‘Those who are not for Me’ said Christ…’are against Me’. And it seems those against Christ are many and varied.

We must seek out the ones that are for Christ. And those who are not against Him….are with Him. They too are many and varied (though obviously not as many as those against Him)

Jonathan West

Ten years ago, the bishops argued against the Civil Partnership Act in almost exactly the same way as they are arguing now against same sex marriage. If the arguments now are valid, then they are equally valid concerning civil partnerships, and so the civil partnership legislation ought to be repealed.

Would you argue that way?

Maccabeus

Since the Christian church is now (and probably always was) a minority enterprise, should it not receive the same government sponsored kid glove special treatment meeted out to all minorities in modern secular society? Or, for secularists, are all minorities equal but some are more equal than others? Certainly, it is also boring in the extreme to hear the word ‘bigotry’ being constantly bandied about by those who refuse to listen to anyone’s argument but their own.

Jonathan West

This is the logical fallacy known as the “slippery slope argument”, asserting that a relatively small first step inevitably leads to a chain
of related events culminating in some significant impact/event that
should not happen, thus the first step should not happen.

Dmirror04

The letter from the Tory chairmen is too long (Cameron probably won’t even look at it, he’s so arrogant),
People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. You’re pretty arrogant yourself, Oddie,

Dmirror04

Kinkysox? Hardly the most suitable name for a Catholic website?

Nicolas Bellord

First of all I do not believe there is civil marriage and religious marriage as two different concepts. There is just marriage and that is between a man and a woman for their mutual benefit and the procreation of children. Further I do not agree that marriage has been adapted. There are of course laws both civil and canonical but they do not adapt marriage, in the sense of changing its nature, but up to now merely regulate it in certain ways. Some of those regulations are good and others bad. Thus for example the English civil laws providing for divorce are of no effect in dissolving a marriage but just a pretence.

The idea that two people of the same sex can be married is just ontologically not possible.

It is worth looking at this from a different point of view. The state decides that in the interests of distributive justice we should have inheritance tax and on death the estate of everyone should be subject to that tax. Marriage however is seen as socially important as it is the place where future generations are procreated, educated and formed. Thus it was deemed useful to have spouse exemption so that the matrimonial home in particular would not have to be sold. It might be detrimental to any children still living at home. Spouse exemption is also a benefit which encourages the attraction and permanency of marriage as marriage is seen as beneficial to society as providing for its continuance.

I see no reason why same-sex couples should enjoy anything similar. Simply because they do not produce the next generation. No doubt you will argue that commitment, love etc should be recognised in such unions and given privileges. But then why should this be confined in the way it has been confined?. Why not give the privileges to include a daughter looking after an aged parent or two sisters or two brothers. The problem with that would be that you end up having no Inheritance Tax!

JabbaPapa

From the Rockefeller Foundation, among others.

Soros has a hand in this pie as well.

The political ideologues of the truly obscenely wealthy in this world have come to the (not illogical) conclusion that, given the ultimately relative nature of wealth as such, the solution to the equation of limited resources being inherently limitative of the maximum amount of wealth available is that the world population must therefore be kept as low as possible by any and all means necessary, so that these ploutocrats can continue in their lives of privilege whilst maintaining their capability to provide minimalist handouts of scrap to the poor.

Any and all means necessary includes the active, virulent, and all-pervasive promotion of contraception, abortion, homosexuality, and eugenics — and the all-out attempt to destroy Christian family values, Catholic in particular.

These are not so much “conspiracies” per se, Rockefeller Foundation notwithstanding, but ideologically motivated political lobbying — but dear Ben, it’s not just two or three years, these ideas have been in circulation for at least a century : the political doctrines of both Maoist China and Nazi Germany were centred on the very same ideological basis.

The irrationality of these ideas is based on the apparent fact that human populations are self-regulating in terms of size anyway, despite the existence of some fringe cases where the psychotic greed of the few can deprive the many of even a basic level of subsistence, or where natural or artificially induced environmental catastrophes can destroy it by accident.

The ultimate source is demonic — in a number of powerful men and women who have accepted their subjugation to the purveyor of lies in return for the subjugation of this fallen world to their personal and evil desires ; in in the far *vaster* numbers of those who are in thrall and subjection to these lies about the government of souls.

WG Grace

Exactly right Liam.

WG Grace

Jews and Masons is what you are saying? We at Gloucestershire County Cricket Club agree.

JabbaPapa

Civil partnership legislation as it exists in the UK should be repealed, yes.

NOT on principle of civil partnership laws being inherently evil or anything, but because it is an atrocious piece of legislation.

There was no need for a civil partnership law to be in competition with nor destructive of any of the defining characteristics of marriage.

Jonathan West

Which of the legal protections of civil marriage should be denied to same sex couples, and why?

Jonathan West

First of all I do not believe there is civil marriage and religious marriage as two different concepts. There is just marriage and that is between a man and a woman for their mutual benefit and the procreation of children.

That was what you believe, but others evidently do not share those beliefs. So, is there any reason why we should legislate on the basis of your particular definition of marriage rather than anybody else’s?

Nicolas Bellord

I particularly indorse your final paragraph. And then why have we abandoned saying the prayer to St Michael the Archangel: “Thrust down to Hell Satan and all the wicked spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls”?

And I particularly recommend Georges Bernanos’s “Sous le Soleil de Satan” to understand how Satan gets lukewarm men to do his will and does not give a damn about their motivation so long as they do some small evil which adds to his grand plan.

Nicolas Bellord

Simply because my definition of marriage has the sanction of being deducible from Natural Law using the principles of practical reason going back as far as Aristotle.

Can you come up with a better one with a similar provenance?

paulsays

Sure, democracies don’t always make the right decisions. Still its the most successful way of running a society we’ve found as yet.

paulsays

Sometimes progress, sometimes not. I think as a society the majority of our judgments we have made have improved society, but not all, for sure.

JabbaPapa

I actually prefer the film adaptation to the novel …

Jonathan West

Well I could have a very long discussion with you about the validity of concepts of Natural Law as they are understood by Catholic teaching, but I shan’t bother, because there is a simpler approach, and that it to point out that you are committing the fallacy of the Appeal to Tradition, treating your idea as true because it had been help to be true for a long time.

If we examine your assertion as described at greater length in your previous comment, in essence you are treating marriages made here on earth as being a mere shadow of their divine meaning in the realm of heaven, and that changes in the civil and human institutions don’t have any effect on the true and divinely ordained meaning of marriage.

Now, you can believe that if you want – I shan’t try to stop you. But if you want others to share that belief, a little bit of evidence would go a long way.

In the absence of such evidence, it is reasonable for humans here on earth to legislate for marriage as for other things based on the earthly effects and consequences of their actions. Would you agree with this point?

JabbaPapa

“legal protections” ?

None, they should either be moved to more appropriate areas of the Law, such as taxation and inheritance laws for instance, or incorporated into a cleaner civil union law than the present one, incorporating the possibility for heterosexual civil unions.

Discrimination against these or those exists in the form of taxation and inheritance and social inequalities ONLY.

Legislating on something entirely different instead of on the sources of the problem is utterly incompetent.

JabbaPapa

Please don’t natter on about logic, given your previously demonstrated incompetence in that field.

These exact same arguments, made against the civil unions legislation, have been objectively verified by last night’s vote.

Katec’s logic is therefore coherent with observable reality.

Nicolas Bellord

What I actually said was “my definition of marriage has the sanction of being deducible from Natural Law using the principles of practical reason going back as far as Aristotle”. So I have referred to natural law as the prime source. I have merely said that the principles of practical reason go back as far as Aristotle. The definition of the fallacy of tradition merely says that relying on tradition does not make something necessarily true. If one was to follow your argument to its logical conclusion one could never accept anything that has been proposed previously!

Goldbach’s conjecture that all even numbers are the sum of two primes has never been proved but the fact that somebody has examined this to 10^18 and the further one goes the more such sums there are for each even number makes it seem extremely probable that it is true. But you could dismiss my reliance on what mathematicians have found as far back as 1742 as relying on the fallacy of tradition.As to your second paragraph I have not said that marriage was divinely ordained although it might well be. What I have said is that one can deduce the good of marriage and the nature of it from natural law. One does not have to posit the existence of a deity to arrive at that any more than one has to posit the existence of a God when making some scientific discovery about, say, electricity. However I do say that “changes in the civil and human institutions don’t have any effect on the true meaning of marriage”.

As to evidence one would be into a very long discussion which would be very time-consuming!

However the evidence is there and there is no need to go for the consequentialist solution you suggest. There are inherent problems with consequentialism such as how do you go about calculating the possible or probable effects and how do you evaluate them. In due course we may discover the consequences but it might be a bit late when the harm is done and we learn that we should have stuck with Natural Law.

JabbaPapa

Goldbach’s conjecture that all even numbers are the sum of two primes has never been proved

2 is an even number

2 is not the sum of two primes

—

More complicated : -2 is an even number

-2 is not the sum of two primes

—

More objectively, if all numbers are included, including the negative ones, or even those located at a distance from the strict positive-negative scale, then it’s a basic fact that ALL numbers are the sum of two other numbers.

(1 is the sum of 3 and -2)

Goldbach’s conjecture is a truism, teaching us nothing except that arbitrary notions are spontaneously engendered by arbitrary rules.

Nicolas Bellord

I should have said all even numbers greater than 2.

The point I was making is that often people think that the only kind of proof of anything must be like mathematical proof and if one cannot prove it thus it is not true. It seems to me this is an example of something that is almost certainly true although one cannot prove it.

As to natural law there are certain basic goods which are self-evident although incapable of proof. At least that is my understanding of John Finnis’s work. I understand that he regards marriage as one of those basic goods.

One of the problems in these discussions is that those who espouse scientism seem to think that science always has proofs of its dogmas and that anything which they regard as outside of science cannot be proved and can therefore be ignored.

I am not sure about your last sentence. I rather agree with Roger Penrose that mathematics exists in a Platonic world of mathematical forms. He also place morality, beauty and truth in a third Platonic world which is bit unusual in someone whom I take to be an atheist?

Jonathan

Our marriage laws were a mess already. They’re about to become messier still.

Can’t wait to see how long, convoluted and tortured the bill becomes after it passes through Committee Stage.

(So says I, a supporter of same-sex marriage!).

Jonathan

I suspect that the repeal by Queen Mary was related to the fact that monks and priests could be executed for buggery (under the act), at a time when they couldn’t even be executed for murder.

Perhaps the act was abused by the protestant monarchs as a convenient law for executing still a few more clerics and monks? Somebody with better history than me might be able to shed some light…

whytheworldisending

Full marks to Milliband for luring Cameron into this political dead end. He has successfully divided and conquered Cameron’s party, and watching PMQ’s today, you can see Cameron knows it. However, with the nation so dissatisfied with all the main parties, and the Conservative Party having been divided – leaving UKIP aside for now – there is a need for a party that represents the views of voters who are opposed to the promotion of permissiveness and who want to retain whatever moral sense Britain has left, for future generations. That party woul dattract many votes, not least from all of the major faith groups, but also from right-thinking people of all faiths and none.

Anyone angry with their MP for ignoring the views of their constituents and voting in favour of the Same Sex Marriage Bill should vote for ANY party or politician coming out against the Bill. That will generally exclude Labour and the Lib Dems, although some MP’s from those parties, who voted against the Bill, would be worthy of consideration.

ALL of the Conservatives who voted against the Bill should receive our vote – whatever party we might otherwise have voted for. Conservatives should still vote for these MP’s even if they are disillusioned with the Conservative party, and even of they are still Conservative candidates. They rebelled once, and they will do so again if necessary. Better still if they have left the Conservatives behind and are standing for a party which pledges to repeal Same Sex Marriage in its manifesto.

The Liberals – with very few seats – have managed to exercise considerable power over policy and law-making. If all of the Conservative rebels (over half the party) and their local activists and supporters got together to form a rival party, they wouldn’t need to win a majority in the General Election in order to achieve their goal. Voters are so divided (Nobody trusts Clegg after the tuition fees fiasco, and nobody trusts Labour after Blair and Brown) they would form part of the next coalition government.

whytheworldisending

Satan?

JabbaPapa

Congratulations to Milliband ????

No, shame on his antidemocratic agitation …

JabbaPapa

Well, at least you’re one of those happy few aware of the deeper contents of the opposite view …

Jonathan West

So, your problem is not the fact that legal protections are being offered to same sex couples that are identical to those of married different-sex couple, it is that the word “marriage” is being used to describe both cases.

Have I understood you correctly?

Nesbyth

And this is good too! It’s from a Sermon by Cardinal Newman, preached at Oxford the year after Queen Victoria’s accession.

“Far be it from us to be seduced with the fair promises in which Satan is sure to hide his poison! Do you think he is so unskilful in his craft as to ask you openly and plainly to join him in his warfare against the Truth? No. He offers you baits to tempt you.
He promises you civil liberty; he promises you equality; he promises you trade and wealth; he promises you remission of taxes; he promises you reform. This is the way in which he conceals from you the kind of work to which he is putting you. He tempts you to rail against your rulers and superiors; he promises you illumination; he offers you knowledge, science, philosophy, enlargement of mind. He scoffs at times gone by; he scoffs at every institution that reveres them. He bids you mount aloft. He shows you how to become as gods. Then he laughs and jokes with you; he gets intimate with you; he takes your hand and gets his fingers between yours and grasps them, and then you are his.”

Taken from “Letter to Julia” by Hugh Ross Williamson.

JabbaPapa

The demonic, yes.

JabbaPapa

No.

The proposal will create an artificial discrimination against ordinary parents and their ordinary rights instead of simply supporting these basic realities of human existence.

Jonathan West

The bishops opposed the Civil Partnerships Act using almost identical language that they have used against the same sex marriage proposals. In the two general elections since, did you ensure that you didn’t vote for an MP who had voted for the bill as it went through Parliament. Do you think that many others did?

If the answer to either question is “no”, then why do you think it will be different this time round?

Jonathan West

Extending existing legal protections to a new group does nothing to remove legal protections from a group that already has them. Therefore there is no discrimination involved.

JabbaPapa

Protections are being removed from teachers and adoption agencies, among others.

And claims from supporters of these ghastly proposals that such a law will not adversely affect anyone simply cannot be taken seriously.

Jonathan West

The purpose of adoption agencies, if they contract to provide adoption services to the government, is to find the best possible placement for the interests of the child.

The child is not to be regarded as a prize to be awarded to parents regarded by the agency as deserving.

It is for this specific reason – the refusal of the adoption agencies to put the interests of the child first by excluding gay couples from all consideration without any attempt to assess whether they would make adoptive parents which cased the govrement to refuse to deal with them.

The adoption agencies had the right to act as they please, but not to require the government to cooperate with them.

Jonathan West

(reply to Nicholas Bellord)

What I actually said was “my definition of marriage has the sanction of being deducible from Natural Law using the principles of practical reason going back as far as Aristotle”. So I have referred to natural law as the prime source.

Yes, but as a matter of observation, other definitions exist and are used. Your earlier comment that “I do not believe there is civil marriage and religious marriage as two different concepts.” may be true as far as your beliefs are concerned, but your beliefs are manifestly at odds with reality. Civil marriage does exist, in as far as there are laws that regulate it which is existence enough for all practical purposes.

I suspect that you are committing the is/ought logical fallacy. You don’t think there ought to be such a thing as civil marriage distinct from religious marriage, and you wish to eliminate the distinction and redefine civil marriage so that it is identical to your understanding of religious marriage, and have this legally applicable to everybody including those who do not share your beliefs.

Why should they go along with this?

Cipresseto

The reason for making same-sex merriage possible without debate, is very politicly motivated.
By excepting it as a result of the socalled genderphylosophy we put the freedom of the individual at the core of our socalled Democracy.
And that democracy we will export all over the world and all of the socalled regime-led nations will have to put in into practice, because we make their people believe that the ultimate freedom of the individual is the supreme thing of our lives we should want to live.
And so is every individual busy with his one freedoms to exploit, and he will thereby be unaware of the fact that he himself is manipulated by the Corporate Society in which he lives.

( sorry for my bad written English )

Tridentinus

“I don’t agree with the view of kinkysox that it will lead to every kind of absurdity.”

Not too many years ago same-sex ‘marriage’ would have been considered an absurdity.

Roderick Blyth

This entirely encapsulates my feelings of the subject: like the writer, I voted for the Conservatives in 2010. I approved of the pact with the Liberals. I invested nothing in the idea of ‘The Big Society’. I thought that a typical piece of vacuous PR work (anyone remember ‘The People’s Charter’?). What I thought that we might get was a much-needed ‘government of national unity’. I am particularly irritated that the reforms about marriage formed no part of the election manifesto. I have no affection to the conservatives as the party of ‘aspiration’. Ff the party has a value for me, it is as a party which keeps faith with the country’s core values, which distrusts innovation, and which is not enslaved by dogma, I have been richly disabused: like the writer, I will not be voting conservative again as long as David Cameron remains party leader.